Order of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS & Others Vs Union of India & Others dated 24/02/2025. The Supreme Court (SC), February 24, 2025 has directed all states to file their affidavits addressing concerns raised about antiretroviral therapy (ART) drugs …
World AIDS Day in early December saw a rash of programmes on the battle against the disease, with Doordarshan and the satellite channels doing their bit to publicise the enormous degree of education and mobilisation needed to meet this killer head-on. One drab discussion on Doordarshan's morning show was enlivened …
The claim by Ayurveda practitioners that it can combat the dreaded HIV virus is only now being examined by the India's scientific establishment. Researchers at the National Institute of Immunology (NII) in New Delhi have begun investigating the anti-HIV properties of seven plants -- Tulsi (Ocimum), Brahmi (Centella), Ashwagandha (Withania …
THE CREDIBILITY of China's controversial Three Gorges project to build the world's largest dam across the Yangtze river has received a setback. Two US government agencies -- the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers -- said they will sever their involvement in the project after completing work …
When the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus was discovered a decade ago, researchers were confident of finding a way to check its growth. Today, about 13 million people have been infected with HIV, but science is still groping in the dark for a cure for AIDS. NEVER underestimate your enemy. But …
RESEARCHERS are unsure of being able to devise a simple series of shots that would give a person lifetime protection against AIDS. To do that, a vaccine will have to ward off all the current HIV strains as well as any future mutants. Vaccines are basically harmless imposters intended to …
HIV IS fast spreading its tentacles in India. According to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), more than 300 people have contacted AIDS since the first case was reported in India in 1986. It is feared that by the turn of the century, about five million persons in the country …
NEARLY 37 million people in the United States have no health insurance at all. Meanwhile, the money spent on health care has been rising steadily till last year, it touched $800 billion -- more than 14 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. But all that will be a …
WITH PREDICTIONS by World Health Organisation officials that 40 million people will be infected by HIV by 2000 and six million of them will go on to contract AIDS and die, a cure for the disease holds out promise for vast profits -- and the Australians, at least, are determined …
WHEN AIDS first came to Africa, the continent's leaders accused the rich whites of the world of foisting the disease on poor blacks to develop a market for western pharmaceuticals. The Indian government hasn't shown this degree of paranoia, but its requirement that long-staying foreigners be HIV-negative reveals its suspicion …
A SERIOUS error acknowledged recently by AIDS researchers at USA's prestigious Harvard Medical School is being cited as an example of what can happen when scientists rush into clinical trials pleading that the urgency of their work excuses corner-cutting. In the Harvard incident, field trials were held nationally, based on …
MEMBER-states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation have drawn up a joint action plan to combat AIDS. At a recent seminar in New Delhi, delegates stressed the need to share information, provide guidelines on policy matters and develop a uniform surveillance system. The seminar was the first of …
SOME AYURVEDIC hospitals in Kerala report their research into a novel method of tackling AIDS is showing promising early results, but they caution against raising hopes because their studies are far from conclusion. Unlike the generously funded research being undertaken at some of the world's most prestigious labs on eliminating …
THERE is more to health policy than just policy for the health sector. But the World Development Report 1993 clearly shows the mandarins -- read health experts -- of the World Bank have trivialised the issue because holism is a philosophy they still have to learn. Surely, for a hungry …
THE NUMBER of people in Bombay who are infected with the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus- 1 (HIV-1) are increasing at an alarming rate, says a recent study (The National Medical Journal Of India, Vol 6, No 1). H A Kamat and D D Banker of Bombay's Sir Hurkisondas Nurrotumdas Hospital, …
THE WORLD Health Organisation asked governments and other groups at the Ninth International AIDS Conference held in Berlin in June, to provide it with $2.5 billion annually, to combat the AIDS epidemic and save 10 million people all over the world this decade. The World Bank also endorsed the plan, …
FIVE-DAY-OLD Andrew Gobea became the first newborn to undergo gene therapy when surgeons at a Los Angeles hospital injected him recently with gene-altered cells obtained from his mother's placental blood to cure a usually fatal defect in his immune system. Andrew suffers from bubbly bay disease and lacks an enzyme …
THE EFFICACY of azidothymidine (AZT) in delaying the onset of AIDS symptoms is in serious doubt following a three-year study in Europe, which indicates it makes little difference whether AZT treatment starts early or late. The Anglo-French study, called Concorde, found 29 per cent of the volunteers who took AZT …
Medical researchers seem to have worried unduly that their grants from funding agencies would be affected because a fire at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on April 27 destroyed their research material. S D Seth, head of the pharmacology department at AIIMS, says, "We have received assurances …
NOW THAT Hiroshi Nakajima has been confirmed as director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), at the organisation's annual general assembly held in early May, he has to start setting his house in order -- a formidable task by all accounts. At the WHO annual general assembly, 93 countries voted …
IT IS SAD that the World Health Assembly did not accept the suggestion of AIDS campaigner Jonathan Mann, that the candidate for the director-generalship of the World Health Organisation take part in a globally broadcast debate on health issues. Mann, a candidate himself, was interested, of course, in pursuing his …
